Members of a panel formed to look at how much councillors in Wokingham are paid have resigned en masse in protest of being overruled.

The Independent Renumeration Panel presented a report to Wokingham Borough Council at a meeting on Thursday, November 17 which made six recommendations, five of which were adopted by the council.

However, one recommendation, number three, was contested by council leader Councillor Keith Baker.

The recommendation focuses on Special Responsibilty Allowances (SRAs), which are extra payments made to those councillors who take on extra roles.

For example, a backbench councillor who is also a director of one of the council’s own companies can claim numerous different payments, but a councillor who sits on the authority’s executive cannot.

Cllr Baker called this an “anomaly” and proposed changing the system so councillors can claim more than one SRA.

He said the amount paid in SRAs was 60 per cent less than the £16,000 paid to councillors in neighbouring Bracknell Forest and felt it was unfair some councillors were able to be paid more than others.

The proposal was met with disgust from opposition Liberal Democrat, who said it was an “utter disgrace”.

The borough’s one Labour councillor Andy Croy also urged the Tories to vote against the plan saying “austerity has to affect everyone”.

Some Tories also voted against the plan, and Cllr Gary Cowan, who later resigned from the party in protest of the council’s Expression of Interest in land in Grazeley which could be used for 15,000 homes, was particularly vocal.

He said afterwards: “In their resignation letter, they warn the decision made by councillors sets a “dangerous precedent” that is not in the interest of Wokingham’s council taxpayers after Cllr Baker asked councillors to ignore the recommendation by the Independent Remuneration Panel to curb ‘SRAs’.

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Cllr Baker said: “I’m disappointed the Independent Remunerations Panel has taken this action.

“Over the last few years they have been excellent and I am sad they have taken this option.

“The IRP was appointed to make independent recommendations on allowances.

“Members were willing to support most of these recommendations an increase of £66 for every councillor, freezing out of pocket, IT and child care expenses and SRAs, but as elected councillors we have a right not to choose to accept them.

“The one recommendation that was not accepted was around the situation where a councillor carries out multiple roles within the council and its companies.

“We felt it simply doesn’t make sense that a backbencher can be paid for performing more than one role, while an executive member can’t.

“Councillors should receive an allowance equal to the amount of work they do.

“Not all councillors from my the Conservative group supported the amendments.

“The abstentions were from councillors who were directly impacted by the recommendation that was not accepted or the alternative proposal which the Conservative group put forward.

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“It was only right and proper that they did not participate in any vote that directly impacts them.

“The alternative proposal only affects two councillors and not all of our councillors.

“However, I’m disgusted and saddened that Cllr Lindsay Ferris, the leader of the opposition, was perfectly happy for councillors to receive multiple allowances – when he petitioned me and approached my deputy leader for the Liberal Democrat deputy leader to receive more money.

“He changed his stance once it was pointed out that the Conservative deputy leader doesn’t receive an extra allowance – and is part of a group nearly 10 times the size of the Liberal Democrats.

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The resignation letter in full

As an Independent Remuneration Panel, on Thursday evening we presented our Annual Report to Wokingham Council.

It detailed some modest increases to the councillors’ basic allowance in line with the increases that council officers receive.

Councillors can also be awarded Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) to reflect the extra work of chairing committees etc. Currently there is a limit of one such payment to councillors who are part of the executive, with no such limit for other councillors. We researched this area extensively.

No other council in Berkshire allows the payment of more than one SRA to an councillor whether on the executive or not.

In the light of this we recommended that the council follow their local market and limit any SRAs to one per member. A key intention of our proposal was to encourage distribution of the workload of council across a wider number of individuals which would benefit Wokingham by embracing a wider skills set.

We are all extremely disappointed that the leader of the council decided not to accept this independent advice but chose to table an amendment proposing that any councillor could receive more than one SRA.

This means that members of the executive now have no limit on the number of SRAs the leader can choose to gift them.

This will do nothing to encourage a wider spread of roles amongst councillors and simply does not reflect the local market.

The amendment was passed with 22 voting for, 12 against and 13 abstentions.

There is a point of principle here.

The strength of an independent panel is just that, it is independent.

For the executive to ignore our advice and to then vote for a potential increase in part of a councillor’s remuneration, which they themselves have suggested, is in our view a dangerous precedent and not in the interests of the council taxpayers of Wokingham borough.

In the light of this we have decided that the only option left to us is to resign as a whole panel. We felt that the residents of Wokingham should be aware of our reasons.